Pumas in need of space

Mountain lions in the Santa Monicas are trapped on an island of habitat.

FROM an urban puma’s perspective, the news of late from greater Los Angeles has been mixed. On the positive front, a small population of pumas is surviving in the relatively compact confines of the Santa Monica Mountains in California, where deer are plentiful and the mountain lions have found mates and reproduced. One healthy male puma has made Griffith Park, in the range’s eastern reaches, his domain and dinette for nearly two years.